A couple found a dream lot steps from the sand in the British Virgin Islands and set out to revamp the dated villa, which was neglected after Hurricane Irma
Alex and James Ballengee love the beach, so when they began searching for the perfect summer home, it was only natural that they gravitated toward the water.
The Dallas-based couple—she’s a self-taught interior designer with seven renovations under her belt, including the conversion of a private home into a boutique hotel in Tulum, Mexico, called Xela, and he’s an entrepreneur—had spent a lot of time traveling through the Caribbean in their yacht when they started looking at houses to buy.
“We wanted to be on an island,” said Alex, 51. “We even thought about buying a private island, but we ultimately decided against that because you have to put in all the infrastructure.”
The British Virgin Islands was their go-to place, and they fell in love with Oil Nut Bay, a secluded 400-acre luxury resort community on the island of Virgin Gorda that is accessible only by boat or helicopter. The development offered them lots of conveniences in the serene island setting: a restaurant, a watersports center, a beach club, a wellness center, pickleball and tennis courts, and a pair of helipads.
“The great thing about the British Virgin Islands is that it’s a perfect mix of temperatures and topography,” Alex said. “There’s just enough to do. We can go everywhere in our yacht, and it’s only a 40-minute flight to St. Barts. We love the Bahamas, but it gets hot, and it has a storm season.”
After making two house-shopping trips to the islands and touring three houses and five empty, buildable lots, the couple found what would become their dream house.
The villa, which is on a double lot and has sweeping views of the water and scenery, had been abandoned after Hurricane Irma mercilessly pummeled the islands in 2017, even though it didn’t suffer significant structural damage. But there were signs of neglect—vines were growing inside the house—and the décor, well, Alex said it was dark, formal, European-style and looked like “an old boat.”
They paid $2.6 million for the property in 2020, a couple of months before the pandemic, which Alex said was “a steal” and “below land value.”
From the start, they knew that it would take a lot to make the villa their own. James had wanted to tear it down, Alex said, but she saw potential in the structural strength that had helped it survive the storm.
Following the architectural and style guidelines of the Oil Nut Bay community, which Alex said still gave her a lot of leeway, she updated the exterior. She replaced the local rustic-looking volcanic stone with light-color Italian marble tiles that are more contemporary in style and switched out the wood-shingled roof with slate tiles.
“It was actually easier and less expensive to do this than it would have been to try to make the old stone—which we reused to build a wall along the driveway so the house fits in with the rest of the neighborhood—work with the new plan,” she said.
She made the pool, which wraps around the house, more in sync with the new exterior by adding a dark pebble finish on the bottom to ground it. Other outdoor spaces she designed include an entertainment area with a fire pit and a grilling station.
The villa, which is made of cement, was stripped to the studs, and Alex set about moving walls to rectify what she described as a “weird” layout that she likened to a Sudoku puzzle.
While the 3,899-square-foot house had two large primary bedroom suites, the entry and living areas connecting them felt small and cramped.
Alex’s solution was to convert one of them into a new living room. The bathroom and closet of the space were large enough to carve out a third bedroom and powder room.
This change allowed the old living room to become an entry hall. With these conversions, Alex thought the house needed more bedrooms, so she put an addition on the side and back of the villa that now houses a new primary suite and two bedroom suites, all of which are connected by a glass hallway that extends around the pool as it winds its way around the house. A neon sign by visual artist Jacolby Satterwhite hangs in this hallway and is visible from the exterior. In glowing yellow, pink and blue letters, it announces “Birds in Paradise.”
“I moved the main primary suite to the far side of the house, which my husband and I use, because I wanted more privacy from the common areas,” she said.
The couple spend January through April at the villa, as well as a month in summer, Alex said. “It’s like our second home.”
Alex offers more insight into the design and reno of the Virgin Gorda home.
I describe my aesthetic as… a little mid-century with a focus on art and unique pieces throughout. I think it’s important to be mindful of every decision for the overall look to feel cohesive and original, clean but not too stiff. My husband and I love to collect art—we buy what we like, it’s not for investment. I like big walls to display. In my house in Dallas and in the one in the British Virgin Islands, I hired the same artist, John Paul Phillippe, to paint a mural in the living room. I see furniture pieces such as chairs as sculptural. They are an art form of their own.
My biggest advice to others is… Trust your instincts. I was afraid the house would feel sparse with my original installation, but I realized it would feel overdecorated if I had added any more. This leads to my advice, which is to allow yourself to work in layers. I think people feel the need to have their houses or projects finished overnight. Start with one big decision and work from there. It’s OK to have an empty wall and a nightstand with only a bowl or a book, or even nothing. Fill it later with something you may have never done before, something found along the way or nothing at all.
The biggest surprise was… What was so different about this renovation project was that I did it from a distance and worked from a floor plan. I visited the site only once every few months. I went with the basics and didn’t over decorate or over accessorize, and I was surprised and pleased that everything fit so well. I really thought I had too many chairs in the living room but loved all of them and was willing to try them all together. I also was shocked at how well the original pool integrated into the new plan.
My favorite room after the renovation… is definitely the entry/kitchen/living room/dining room because it was such an awkward space before. We took out one of the two primary suites to make the living room, and it was a great decision. This opened everything up to create an entertainment communal area where the rooms flow into each other.
The most dramatic change… was the overall look from dark wood and local stonework to the more modern, light look we achieved with the linear exterior stone and tile roof and all the new ornate cabinetry throughout.
A favorite material discovered during the process… I’ve never been super brave with color. I tend to lean into earth tones and muted colors for a soothing overall palette because I want every room to feel like the beach. During this project, I realized that natural stone is where I find it easiest to use color and drama. The turquoise marble slab that’s the color of the Mediterranean that’s on the sides and top of the kitchen island totally makes the house, in my opinion, and then the mural picks up the turquoise to make the living room more interesting.
An unexpected expense was… the cost of shipping and storing everything from storm windows to bar stools. The holding warehouse, which charged by the day, had some of our things in storage in Miami for over a year while we renovated. I saved a little, though, because it was during the pandemic and I was being told that I had to wait six weeks to six months for delivery of items. The stove, for instance, was going to take 18 months to arrive. So I decided to wait until the project was closer to completion before buying. I never added up how much the shipping and storage were because I didn’t want to know.
Total cost of the renovation… We spent $7 million, which was about 20% more than we had budgeted, but some of the extra cost came from Covid because of supply-chain issues.
